Visual Narration Assignment from my New Letterpress Book-Making Class

*Using 1 image, and only 1 image, create a visual narration over a series of pages.

*You may change the image in any way, via digital or hand-done means, to create the narration.

*In this case, "narration" means "traditional linear narration," using Freitag development.

*Use one blank page somewhere in the narration to act as a dramatic pause.

*No text.

Lessons I Learned

Lesson, or Question, #1: If a single image is cut into pieces and re-arranged in a way that is devoid of the original context (the whole), is it really 1 image, or a new series of images? I think my teacher--and I, when I thought about it--felt I had fudged a bit on the assignment by using a series of pieces from a single poster. The overall effect was not of focus on the capacity of 1 image to change, but rather on the ability of a series of different images to come together.

Lesson #2: A single image can be changed by panning in and out for framing reasons, focusing on parts of an image and blurring others, snipping a fragment out and moving it around within the overall image, removing or erasing part of an image to create new focus, changing the placement of the image on the page, changing the page/paper on which the image is placed, adding or subtracting, changing lighting or hue, and so forth.

Lesson #3: The graphic artists with whom I'm taking the class know quite a bit more about visual design, but more importantly Illustrator and the printer options of our school than I, the writer, do. I will have to hunt them down and have them show me how to print in color on different paper weights and stocks.

Lesson #4: This class is going to be hard and time-consuming. It is going to make me think about the relationship of all materials to all materials. Metaphysical, etc.

Note to #4: Yesturday at 12:57, I accidentally printed Time on the palm of my hand in Universe 12pt. This happened when I spaced out and leaned onto my own letters. By 3:15, I had sweated it all off. Last night I dreamt about language that shattered and scattered across the page. Words revealed their meanings through visual narration of themselves. This class is going to be worth it.